


Tea Party

by back2the_ocean



Series: Claire Hargreeves' Summer [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Dress Up, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gen, Light-Hearted, Murdery Five Hargreeves, One Big Happy Family, Tea Parties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:29:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26314189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/back2the_ocean/pseuds/back2the_ocean
Summary: Five has a plan. It does not survive contact with his niece.
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Diego Hargreeves, Claire & The Hargreeves (Umbrella Academy), Grace Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Claire Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves
Series: Claire Hargreeves' Summer [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1925470
Comments: 18
Kudos: 182





	Tea Party

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to @NerdyDalek9, @viridescentshade, and @cbuugdrama9 for reading over this - they are honestly the best

Five was absolutely going to blame Klaus for everything. It could only be his fault that Five found himself dressed in a fairy princess dress with matching nails and makeup, attending a tea party. 

That morning, Allison had picked up Claire from the airport — Patrick was apparently shooting some sort of documentary in Africa over the summer and didn’t want to leave Claire with somebody in LA or take her with him. Thus Allison got temporary custody while Patrick was away. 

Mom was over the moon, loving the chance to meet her granddaughter. Klaus and Ben were almost as excited and Five knew that Vanya and Diego were quietly eager as well, all of them counting down the day until they met their niece. Luther had flown out with Allison earlier in the year for Allison’s court hearing and got to meet Claire in California.

Five was mostly indifferent. He had never interacted with kids before and didn’t really care to now. He remembered what absolute brats his siblings were at that age — even Vanya — and he didn’t want to get mixed up in that nonsense again. He figured he’d be there to greet Allison and meet Claire and then find ways to not be at the Mansion for most of the summer. 

It was a solid plan. He just didn’t account for the rest of his siblings. He was working in Dad’s old office — the seven of them had gone to town on the room, breaking everything in sight, even starting some small fires (Klaus) that were very quickly put out. Afterward, they had given Five the room and told him to do things dad wouldn’t be proud of. Five ignored what Klaus was implying with that statement (that was paired with a pair of waggling eyebrows) and gladly moved into the study.

He had planned on working on his equations to get his adult body back— he had hoped to get them done before the new year but as he sat squished into a child’s chair, sipping at imaginary tea he saw those plans go up in smoke. Five knew — to the bottom of his soul — that he wasn’t going to be able to avoid his family this summer. 

“Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to stay. I have work to be doing and this is not going to help.” Five was dead set on leaving this ridiculous thing.

“Oh, what are you working on Uncle Five?”

“I need to finish my quantum equation so that I may return to my adult body. It’s work that’s far beyond the intelligence of anyone currently living in this house.”

“That sounds amazing!” Claire’s voice was appropriately amazed.

Claire was absolutely brilliant and he couldn’t let his dumbass siblings mess that up. Obviously that meant he’d have to be more involved in her plans during the summer to run interference against his brothers. He knew, _he just knew,_ that their idiocy would spread and he couldn’t have that. 

Klaus was muttering about princesses and dragons and magic...Five narrowed his eyes and quietly began to make plans on how to limit Claire’s exposure to him. That sort of nonsense was ok — barely — in small doses but Klaus was _not_ a small dose and with him not working...Klaus was going to be a problem.

There was a loud crash followed by yelling and cursing and Five frowned. It was Luther and Diego in the foyer and he didn’t even want to begin imagining what kind of bad habits they could impart on Claire, the fools. He distinctly remembered a phone call threatening a defenseless old woman because those morons thought she had killed Elliot. Which reminded him, he needed to figure out what languages Claire spoke so he could help fill it out with more practical languages. Five guessed she might have Spanish and French, but he had a list of languages that would be more useful to know.

Ben’s laughter grew as Luther and Diego’s cursing did and Five mentally crossed him off his list. Ben had spent too long with only Klaus to talk to — he couldn’t be trusted to make good choices. He might be a good partner on some trips though, isolate him from their brothers. 

A selection from the Phantom of the Opera grew louder in response to the nonsense happening in the foyer and Five grinned. He’d have to get Vanya on board with his plans — musical ability was high on the list of things Claire should know and it would be helpful to have an ally in his fight. Claire might even ask for lessons herself if he talked about it in the right way.

Allison...might be an issue. Five was planning on hogging her daughter — but he remembers the fights for the bathroom and the sharp pains of Allison’s elbows. He didn’t need a reminder from her this summer. Nor was he going to allow that sort of senseless violence to come from Claire. Instead, he wanted to nurture a more targeted violence. Claire looked like she had inherited Allison’s pointed elbows and Five had _plans_ for those things. _Plans._

Five dove deeper into his thoughts, all but ignoring every happening around him. 

* * *

“Do you think he knows we can hear him?” Diego didn’t know whether to be insulted or amused. He had rushed home as soon as he could to meet Claire but had run into Luther right in the foyer. It has set off one of their common fights which Allison had to break up. Afterward, she dragged him up to Claire’s new room where they were greeted with prime blackmail material — Five playing dress-up and having a tea party with their brother and niece.

“You think we’d still be alive if we saw this?” Allison did have a good point but on the other hand-

“He hasn’t hurt Klaus, yet.”

“Klaus is probably the reason he’s in the dress.”

“Not Claire?”

“She doesn’t really care for tea parties but she does like messing with people.” Allison sounded smug and proud, a tone that had Diego instinctively shuddering. 

“Really?”

“Remind me to tell you the story about the third babysitter.”

Diego gave her a harsh side-eye at that and made the silent decision to never do that. He looked again at Five and Klaus playing pretty princesses and happened to see the glint in Claire’s eyes and _knew_ that Claire was more like Allison then he thought. He remembers the Fight for the Bathroom and wanted no part in a round two.

“Is...is he planning on weaponizing my daughter?” Allison’s voice broke his train of thought and he focused on what Five saying more then what he was wearing and it...concerned him slightly.

“Yes. He is planning on weaponizing her. And I think he might be planning on killing me and Luther.”

“Well, that’s understandable.”

“What’s understand...able?” Luther and Ben’s echoed question slowly trailed off as they spotted the same thing that stopped Diego and Allison earlier. Diego was only slightly wary of Ben’s smile, reminding himself that Ben _had_ spent several years with only Klaus for company. 

“Five is planning our murder.” Diego threw Five under the bus with no shame.

“Why?” Luther sounded confused.

“Do you really think he needs a specific reason?”

“Well, I’d hope he’d have at least one.”

“...he grew up with us.” Allison’s tone was dry.

“He realizes that we also grew up with him right?” Diego muttered under his breath as he tried to remember where Mom left the camera. He wanted physical proof that this party was happening.

“Oh, he probably conveniently forgot that side of the story. Is he planning on using Claire and her el-elbows?!” Ben sounded mildly impressed but Diego saw Luther shuddered and finally had some proof that Luther had a brain somewhere in his giant head.

“From the sounds of it, he doesn’t want our idiocy to infect Claire.” 

“Soooo...he’s planning on killing us?” Diego had to sound incredulous. Five was skipping like seven different steps that should happen before murder.

“Oh, he’s been at it for a while. Murder is just the latest step of his master plan,” Klaus finally piped up from his seat in the room, proving that the three of them could actually hear them.

“Yeah, but he’s not going to do anything but plan. Right, Uncle Five?” Claire’s voice was sweet on the surface but Diego knew better. The males present in the room all froze and paled several shades. That tone was all pre-teen Allison and the terror they felt was ingrained.

Only Five was brave enough to start talking, “Claire, I don’t think you-”

Claire only raised an eyebrow at him and he shut his mouth quickly and violently. Diego laughed a little under his breath but the way that Claire slowly turned to look at him muted his laughter.

“Why don’t you all come join us!”

* * *

Grace hummed under her breath a little, stacking the cookies she had just finished baking. Her darling granddaughter had asked for some chocolate chip cookies made with love and Grace was hopeless to refuse. She finished with the cookies and moved to take them to Claire’s room. She met Vanya on the landing, Vanya coming from her music room, and Grace offered her a cookie.

“Thanks, Mom. But why?”

“Oh! Claire was telling me she was planning on having a tea party with everyone and wanted some cookies for it.”

“They’re having a tea party?” Vanya sounded both ignored and delighted.

“Well, I believe that your brothers were pressed into it but I'm sure they’ll be glad to have you join them.” Grace hummed a little, wanting to make her youngest daughter happy again.

She got her wish when they came to Claire’s room and Vanya’s laughter rang out over the conversation happening at Claire’s kid-sized table. Grace smothered a smile, not wanting to hurt anybody’s pride but helpless all the same to prevent the smile from forming in the first place. She agreed with Vanya’s laughter. Her boys did look somewhat ridiculous, dressed in badly fitting princess dresses as they were.

“Not. A. Word.” Her lovely Diego uttered what he thought was a threat but Grace knew that nobody was going to take him seriously — not with his tiara falling off and his make-up smudged.

“Auntie Vanya! Gramma! Join us?”

Grace and Vanya shared smiles and went to get changed — they were attending a royal tea party. They couldn’t wear just anything after all.

**Author's Note:**

> i honestly don't know where this idea came from but i had fun writing it.
> 
> apologizes for how long I've been away -- i needed to take a step away from all my media accounts to take a break. i am working on both Charlie's chapter 3 and path's chapter 5 is done and just waiting for a final beta work
> 
> come talk to me at my tumblr dcksdrgsdebutantes to talk and to see my character moodboards. also I have a tua discord - give me a shout if you'd like to join


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